Current organic agriculture performs well in several sustainability domains, like animal welfare, farm profitability and low pesticide use, but yields are commonly lower than in conventional farming. There is now a revitalized interest in increasing yields in organic agriculture to provide more organic food for a growing, more affluent population and reduce negative impacts per unit produced. However, past yield increases have been accompanied by several negative side-effects. Here, we review risks and opportunities related to a broad range of sustainability domains associated with increasing yields in organic agriculture in the Northern European context. We identify increased N input, weed, disease and pest control, improved livestock feeding, breeding for higher yields and reduced losses as the main measures for yield increases. We review the implications of their implementation for biodiversity, greenhouse gas emissions, nutrient losses, soil fertility, animal health and welfare, human nutrition and health and farm profitability. Our findings from this first-of-its-kind integrated analysis reveal which strategies for increasing yields are unlikely to produce negative side-effects and therefore should be a high priority, and which strategies need to be implemented with great attention to trade-offs. For example, increased N inputs in cropping carry many risks and few opportunities, whereas there are many risk-free opportunities for improved pest control through the management of ecosystem services. For most yield increasing strategies, both risks and opportunities arise, and the actual effect depends on management including active mitigation of side-effects. Our review shows that, to be a driving force for increased food system sustainability, organic agriculture may need to reconsider certain fundamental principles. Novel plant nutrient sources, including increased nutrient recycling in society, and in some cases mineral nitrogen fertilisers from renewable sources, and truly alternative animal production systems may need to be developed and accepted.

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This paper systematically evaluates the extent to which achieving the UN sustainable development goals (SDGs) is compatible with improving animal welfare. The analyses were based on discussion and independent scoring in a group of 12 participants with academic backgrounds within agricultural or veterinary sciences. We considered all categories of animals; those kept for food production, working and companion animals, but also laboratory and wild animals. The strengths of the links between improving animal welfare and achieving an SDG were scored on a 7-point scale, from being completely indivisible, at one end of the scale, to where it is impossible to reach both the SDG and improved animal welfare at the same time. There was good consensus between participants, with the overall scores being positive, indicating that although animal welfare is not explicitly mentioned in the SDGs, working to achieving the SDGs is compatible with working to improve animal welfare. When analyzing the direction of the links, the impact of achieving an SDG was considered, on average, to be slightly better at leading to improved animal welfare, than the impact of improving animal welfare was on achieving the SDG. The exception to this was for SDG 2, dealing with zero hunger. The two SDGs for which there was strongest mutual reinforcing were SDG 12, which deals with responsible production and consumption, and SDG 14, which deals with life below water. Most of the targets under these two SDGs were considered relevant to animal welfare, whereas when all SDGs were considered, 66 targets of the total of 169 were considered relevant. Although the results of this study suggest a mutually beneficial relationship between improving animal welfare and achieving SDGs, this should be confirmed on a wider group of people, for example people from less developed countries and other stakeholders. Showing the relationships between animal welfare and the sustainable development goals helps highlight the importance of animal welfare when implementing these goals in practice. The methodology described in this study could also be useful to researchers working with other societal and environmental issues not yet considered within the overall SDG framework.

BackgroundThere is increasing interest in recording tail damage in pigs at slaughter to identify problem farms for advisory purposes, but also for benchmarking within and between countries as part of systematic monitoring of animal welfare. However, it is difficult to draw conclusions when comparing prevalence’s between studies and countries partly due to differences in management (e.g. differences in tail docking and enrichment routines) and partly due to differences in the definition of tail damage.MethodsTail damage and tail length was recorded for 15,068 pigs slaughtered during three and four consecutive days at two slaughterhouses in Sweden. Tail damage was visually scored according to a 6-point scale and tail length was both visually scored according to a 5-point scale and recorded as tail length in centimetres for pigs with injured or shortened tails.ResultsThe total prevalence of injury or shortening of the tail was 7.0% and 7.2% in slaughterhouse A and B, respectively. When only considering pigs with half or less of the tail left, these percentages were 1.5% and 1.9%, which is in line with the prevalence estimated from the routine recordings at slaughter in Sweden. A higher percentage of males had injured and/or shortened tails, and males had more severely bitten tails than females.ConclusionsWhile the current method to record tail damage in Sweden was found to be reliable as a method to identify problem farms, it clearly underestimates the actual prevalence of tail damage. For monitoring and benchmarking purposes, both in Sweden and internationally, we propose that a three graded scale including both old and new tail damage would be more appropriate. The scale consists of one class for no tail damage, one for mild tail damage (injured or shortened tail with more than half of the tail remaining) and one for severe tail damage (half or less of the tail remaining).

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